The big climate policy news this week is the emergence of a new US climate policy from President GWB. This is the man who brought us in 2002 that oh so stringent 18% reduction in GHG intensity by 2012 — which just so happened to be the forecast baseline. And now we get this,

In reading the description of what is to come and comparing it to the President’s history on climate policy (See DOT Earth Post and Text here), one can’t help but chuckle at the above photo. It pretty much sums up the policy announcement.

But here is my take: stabilization of emissions by 2025, re-announce old stuff like vehicle and renewable fuel standards (ethanol and biodiesel), make vague gestures towards the power sector, reaffirm the love for nukes and coal, hate for regulations (and how they managed to weave in the link to Species at Risk legislation I will never know), and of course how technology is the key and should be subsidized. And oh yes the economy should be left harmless.

For Canada and competitiveness this stance is somewhat better than before, but still shows an implementation risk, where a majour trading partner’s climate policy stringency is not aligned with ours. But, with the US election to come, and all that is going on in Congress, it is too early to talk of implementation risk. But still, this shows movement, and in time other competitiveness challenges, notably the non-party risk (i.e. China without binding targets) could also become less of a concern.

But for now we can still chuckle over the image and perhaps the policy…”My reduction is this big”